


Matter of Interest

by stephanericher



Series: 31 Days of Horoscopes [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 18:18:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9337307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: 1/14: Today you could look in the mirror and be appalled by what you see, activating your insecurity about the way you look. This could send you looking for various treatments. Go ahead if you want, Aquarius, but your impressions are clouded right now and you probably look far better than you think. If you get together with a love partner, this person's reaction should give you the reassurance you need.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this 31-day challenge is based on the wonderful [31-Day Horoscope Challenge by @icandrawamoth](http://archiveofourown.org/series/621022). Simply: read your horoscope for the day from horoscope.com (Aquarius for me); use it as a writing prompt.
> 
> also, cw for some violent thoughts (toward people) & canon-typical violence (toward objects).

He’s felt the sting of the cut across his face every minute since it happened, the wound cauterized but no less painful than first degree burns tend to be. It should be perfect for his training, pain that’s not from some stupid emotion that reeks of the light side like what he feels when he thinks about Han Solo, pain that doesn’t impair his movement like the shot on his hip does, pain that just pulses on his face, flaring up again when he contorts his expression. It’s not enough, though, and the Supreme Leader knows it, too. Even that’s not enough to make him sick and hurt enough to grab a proper hold on the dark side. But he still feels the pain. He just doesn’t see it until several days after, and for a second barely recognizes his own face.

Ren’s never been particularly concerned with his face. It looks the way it looks, which for a long time hasn’t mattered as much as the mask. But there’s never been anything wrong with his face, anything that stands out against his skin the way that mark does. It’s not even that it’s ugly or that it’s a wound. Wounds can be distinguishing, and scars can be reminders of pain. But this is a reminder of something else, staring back at him. He sees the blue light reflected onto his face, that lightsaber between his eyes, that scavenger girl wielding it as if it’s hers by right. Ren’s fists are already shaking; he closes his eyes but it doesn’t go away, damn mirror shining right through his eyeballs. So he grabs the mirror by the edges and pulls.

It hurts; he digs in with his shoulders, determined not to use the Force, to feel the pain, to drag out the stress on the useless thing’s durasteel joints, to relish in the screams as whatever sticks it to the wall is torn apart like brittle bones. For a moment it feels good; for a moment he imagines the scavenger’s wrist snapping just like that but then the mark on his face burns like the atmosphere on a meteorite and he sees her, feels the light side hovering around her, too much like Skywalker, and he almost stumbles backward when the mirror finally detaches. It’s way too heavy, and Ren drops it over the brim of the sink. It shatters; he hears it but that’s no matter. He needs bacta, lots of bacta. That will make it hurt more in the short term and heal it in the long term, and the next time he sees her (and there will be a next time) she will see for herself that their last meeting had been nothing but a minor setback, causing nothing permanent other than locking her in as his next target.

But now, he needs bacta, and he needs it fast. A few days is already too long. He’s barely aware of anything around him as he makes his way to the medbay, crumpling the doors open with the Force and demanding some bacta from the nearest trooper. It feels good to hear fear, even processed through a helmet. Fear, not disgust or ridicule that something like this could have happened to him (then again, the troopers probably don’t know what really happened, or at least they shouldn’t).

“Sir, how much?”

“Every pack you have.”

“But Sir—”

“I said, all of it.”

“We have other patients…” the trooper bleats pathetically.

“What is going on?”

Hux, now surgically attached to two datapads instead of the usual one, is halfway through the door and the irritation is coming off his Force presence in waves. That and a heightened sense of his usual anxious worry, which has been the case ever since they got off Starkiller. He’s probably mourning his beloved weapon or something; Ren hasn’t really been close enough to him to find out.

“I need bacta. This trooper here apparently doesn’t understand orders.”

“Sir, we need to keep some of it.”

Ren’s fingers are itching; he can feel the trooper’s larynx in the Force, so easy to reach out and crush.

“Well, then,” says Hux. “I would expect you to follow reasonable orders from a superior and give what you can in order to satisfy his request and keep the medbay running.”

“Right away, sir.”

The trooper practically dashes off.

“What’s his number?” Hux says to another trooper.

Hux takes it in, notes something on one of the datapads, and turns back to the other in one motion. He’s still giving off the same irritation (and even if he wasn’t he’s not even bothered to hide the furrow in his brow and that everyone-is-so-incompetent-it’s-giving-me-a-headache look he so often wears), but he hasn’t said anything to Ren yet. The trooper returns, carting what’s probably almost a tank’s worth of bacta in a crate behind him. Hux looks at Ren expectantly; his eyes linger on the cut but there’s no disgust, just more of that knotted anxious stuff. This is strange and possibly worth looking into, and definitely worth a few minutes of precedence over his face.

“Have it sent to my quarters.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“You,” Hux says to the other trooper. “Take care of it. He needs to report to his division leader.”

“Sir, yes, right away, Sir,” says the trooper.

Hux swipes rapidly across both datapads while the remaining trooper mutters instructions through his comm. Ren waits.

“Yes?” says Hux, barely looking up.

“I’m leaving,” says Ren.

Hux knows that’s an invitation to follow, and he does, eyes still attached to those stupid screens. He’s not looking at Ren, but it might be in his usual such-an-important-micromanaging-administrator way rather than out of avoidance, but Ren might as well ask.

“You don’t find me repulsive?”

“I thought my feelings on that matter were obvious,” says Hux.

They’d been obvious back on Starkiller, on the _Finalizer_ , before all this, when Ren’s failure hadn’t been glaring more obviously than a siren strapped to the top of his head would have been, when he’d had a whole face. And there is no repulsion in his Force presence, still the same annoyance but the anxiety is building up closer to panic. It shows with how tightly he’s clutching the datapads, how stiffly he holds his elbows as he walks.

“So why do you want me to get the bacta? You can’t stand looking at me, either.”

Ren knows he’s picking a fight in the middle of the hallway, channeling his anger into annoying Hux rather than anything worthwhile, except Hux doesn’t seem annoyed. He stops and turns toward Ren.

“Is this what this is about? The way it looks?”

Hux seems genuinely confused for a moment, and then something akin to relief starts to bleed through his Force presence, washing the panic back. And now Ren’s the confused one.

“I’m not privy to your medical records. The Supreme Leader has made sure of that,” says Hux. “I had assumed you were seriously injured, but if this is just for vanity—although I suppose that’s why you broke the mirror, which you should know better than to do at this point.”

And Hux is back to himself, sort of. It’s like he’s overcompensating for that strange relief by snapping back up, checking the same file on the datapad again. Interesting. And he’s not making the bacta packs an issue (though he could very well be canceling the order right now, but he probably wouldn’t do it without making some snide remark). This is also interesting, but Ren’s not sure where to take this conversation. Does he ask Hux if he finds him handsome? Does he say something about the bacta, or about Hux not understanding the dark side feeding on pain? He’s still deciding when Hux turns the corner and leaves him, but it’s certainly something to think about while he’s applying bacta to his face without a reflection.

**Author's Note:**

> ..........yeaaaaaah ren really doesn't get it. idk if he'd be able to process it if he did lmao


End file.
